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Comment

Kids don’t really know what they mean when they ask you for an “action book”. They’re basically just craving something that doesn’t bore them to sleep. It’s what catapulted the Alex Rider series to fame and fortune, and what keeps kids coming back to books when they’ve a host of digital distractions at their beck and call. The Boy at the End of the World is very much of that ilk, but it has more brains than your average airport thriller. Here’s a dire future that looks bad, but has a hero you can emotionally attach yourself to easily and a plot that moves like river rapids. Throw in what may be the world’s creepiest villain (let’s just say it gives the term “earworm” a whole new meaning) and you’ve got yourself a great little book. One that knows what it wants to do and then does it. Just fun.

Summary

He wakes up to a world destroyed. Something has gone wrong. Created with an abundance of fishing knowledge, young Fisher emerges full formed from his pod to find that he may well be the last human being on earth. Thousands of years ago humans created bunkers called “Arks” and placed a variety of species in there asleep until they could be wakened. A good plan, until someone sabotages Fisher’s Ark leaving him, by chance, the only creature alive. Determined to seek out other Arks, wherever they might be, Fisher finds himself in a hostile new world where there’s everything from rampaging birds to mechanical killers. Fortunately he has Click, a helper robot of limited means, a mammoth he names Protein, and a native prairie dog with rudimentary English skills called Zapper to help him in his quest.

Quotes

“If he died, nobody would be around to ask what had finally killed off the human species. Which was a little bit of a good thing, because the answer – ‘They were eaten by parrots’ – was not the kind of legacy he wanted to leave behind.”